Michael T. Flynn Quotes

Donald Trump is a leader. He will reassert America's position as the nation with the best values to lead the world.

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn't. Hey, it made me a better leader: you have to take a lot of people's needs into account; you have to look down the road. Trying to negotiate getting a couple of kids to watch the same TV show requires serious diplomacy.

Good political leadership for me involves getting the big decisions right - however difficult, however controversial, however potentially divisive and then being able to take people with you.

Americans must place greater emphasis on the more subtle dimensions of national power, such as innovation, education, the balance of force and diplomacy, and the quality of political leadership.

There is no substitute for American leadership and exceptionalism.

I work with the president and speak with him multiple times a week. This is a man, he didn't become the president by accident. And as much as everyone wants to talk about stability, was he unstable when he passed the tax reform? Was he unstable when we finally hit back at Syria and said no more chemical weapons?

A lot of what a military officer does is not just leading troops in combat. It's also doing budgets. It's solving complex problems. If you can sit down with warlords, you can certainly sit down with different parties and folks with different interests and come out with an amenable solution.

You've seen President Trump act decisively when it comes to Syria. It didn't take him long to pull the trigger in regard to a response to the chemical attack. That's a decisive leader and that's who the G20 leaders saw in Hamburg, as someone who is decisive, someone who is not afraid, someone who doesn't kowtow, and stands up for himself when it comes to issues of disagreement like trade and the Paris agreement.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

In the long term, Germany didn't need a finance minister who was absent during important negotiations in the European Council. But the chancellor strongly encouraged me to stay. And everything did work out for the best in the end.

Nixon was an awful president in many ways, including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.

You cannot be the leader of the free world and sit on the sidelines and tweet and think you're going to get the job done.

Japan is a great nation. It should begin to act like one.

A statesman wants courage and a statesman wants vision; but believe me, after six months' experience, he wants first, second, third and all the time - patience.

A president, like a college freshman, can't know in advance which questions he'll have to answer or what topics he'll have to master. He has to be flexible, supple, and responsive. He has to be comfortable with multiple-choice.

In this era of uncertainty and conflict, the United States - blessed with the world's strongest military, most ingenious economy, and most tolerant society - remains a model and leader to the world.

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.

Almost all politicians are able to have a great one-on-one meeting. But I'm not interested in the candidate who can have a great meeting. I'm interested in the person who can make the right decisions.

Leaders of the future will have to be visionary and be able to bring people in - real communicators. These are things that women bring to leadership and executive positions, and it's going to be incredibly valuable and incredibly in demand.

I think America has more than enough maturity and intelligence to start exercising its world leadership responsibly.

The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.

All good Presidents are supple.

He [President Warren G. Harding] is a kind, companionable fellow to go with on a fishing expedition or to play cards with; but he is not the man to have as President or leader.

When you're President you have to make a lot of tough decisions. You have to keep lining them up and making them.

The distinction between a statesman and a politician is that the former imposes his will and his ideas on his environment while the latter adopts himself to it.